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Thread: The Trump Presidency

  1. Finished Fire and Fury. Some random thoughts:

    • The book is trashy and salacious, but that seems kind of appropriate given the principal players. This book is a lot of he said/she said (and presented as such), but it's still the best collection of first-hand accounts we have on the inner workings of the white house. While I'd take the absolute truth of some of these with a grain of salt, the mere fact that people are saying these things, and that there seems to be overwhelming consensus that Trump is emotionally and intellectually incapable of doing the job. This is the one thing almost everyone seems to agree on -- Trump is dumb, childish, and --
      -- perhaps most tellingly -- utterly disinterested. Walking out of meetings with world leaders because he's bored, mocking people for trying to show him details or presentations. He thinks being president is super annoying, but he's addicted to the attention.

    • Some voices get amplified more than others, especially Bannon, who was clearly the one most willing to consistently dish about every development -- especially when it allows him to distance himself from some clusterfuck or another. Bannon delights in noting his distance from anything to do with Russia, the ensuing denials/coverup, anything military, and several public gaffes. Blame for these is almost always thrown at the feet of Jared and Ivanka (which the book insists on referring to as "Jarvanka," which is so fucking terrible). Dina Powell offers a bit of perspective into the other side, but we don't really get a great sense of Jared and Ivanka's side. They're portrayed as bumbling and naive "liberals," who constantly tell Trump to do the things that get him in trouble. This might be occasionally true, but it's surely Bannon putting his spin on a lot of it. The book is in no way kind to Bannon -- he's more or less called an evil, manipulative, racist who wants to blow up the system, but there's a lot of instances where his telling is likely the primary or only source so his point of view prevails. Rupert Murdock and Roger Ailes also loom very large in the first half, but of course Ailes drops off after his death and Murdock seems to quietly disappear at the same point in the story.

    • What's most striking about the whole thing is how little vision there is. Trump has assembled a team of people with disparate and opposing views, all with their own agendas. Trump gives zero fucks about any of it and just wants people to like him, so all of these camps are trying to out-play each other to manipulate the Toddler-in-Chief. All of these people think they're Littlefinger, and they can plot and scheme their way to influence. In practice, efforts to fuck over opposing camps are more successful than efforts to actually get Trump to do anything, which is why there's so many leaks and so little actual getting shit done.

    • Russia. The details on this offer some great insight, and it'll probably be disappointing to a lot of those that want to believe Trump masterminded a plot to hack the election. Instead, it suggests that Trump Jr (considered "not the brightest" by even his father) went out on his own in an attempt to score a big "get" and impress his father, and it's not really clear that anything directly came from it. This might be a treason charge in another era, but I don't think there's much more to it than what we already know, which means it seems unlikely to rise to the level of impeachment.

    • The efforts to lie about connections to Russia, and to shutter the investigation likely have to do with financial crimes that have nothing to do with influencing the outcome of the election. Disappointingly, Bannon suggests these have more to do with Jared and Ivanka rather than Trump itself, but finding any serious crime is going to strengthen the case for obstruction of justice against Trump.

    • There are some striking absences from the book. Pence is almost completely omitted -- he's briefly discussed as kind of a stooge/lapdog that most people don't think is very smart, but it's also clear that he's managed to both completely avoid the chaos and controversy of the administration, while sitting in a position that leaves him next in the line of succession. He could be the most skillful player in the whole thing. We also get nothing or only a few words on Rex Tillerson, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sebastian Gorka, Mattis, and other key players.


    There's not a lot of bombshell revelations in the book, but it affirms in much more certain terms a lot of what has been whispered about, and it gives some more detail on perplexing public moments.
    Last edited by Frogacuda; 09 Jan 2018 at 11:00 AM.

  2. Obstruction of Justice is impeachable.

  3. Quote Originally Posted by Joust Williams View Post
    Obstruction of Justice is impeachable.
    But he confessed to it in no uncertain terms, and no one has tried to impeach him. If it becomes undeniable that there was crime by his family members that he wanted to hide, that might put pressure on them to revisit the matter, but as it stands it seems like congress is willing to let it slide.

  4. Well that’s because Republicans are fucking deplorable (she was right). This is the party that grilled Hillary 10 times for bullshit but won’t let Trump be interviewed, and impeached Bill for far less than what Trump is doing.

  5. why would they let that happen to their own team?
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  6. Because one would hope they are there to serve the people. But as long as racists keep voting them in, then whatever.

    Fusion GPS interview released. Good work.
    Last edited by Joust Williams; 09 Jan 2018 at 01:20 PM.

  7. #5097
    Quote Originally Posted by YellerDog View Post
    why would they let that happen to their own team?
    Because this isn't suppose to be sports.

  8. Whoops guess what, it's sports.
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  9. So is the pee tape dropping today or what?
    Quote Originally Posted by Razor Ramon View Post
    I don't even the rage I mean )#@($@IU_+FJ$(U#()IRFK)_#
    Quote Originally Posted by Some Stupid Japanese Name View Post
    I'm sure whatever Yeller wrote is fascinating!

  10. Something big is brewing. I've gotten a TON of emails.

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